March 13, 2011

On March 2d, Meade removed a sign — "I fought for the Union/You should too" — that was tied to the foot of this statue. Today, we found the monument desecrated once again, and Meade sprang into action:

Althouse (at 1:44): "And if they were here to explain it, they'd say that he fought for the union, and you know was there for the union ..."

Ironically, they'd be right.

Heg fought in the Civil War because he felt the government was in danger.

Wikipedia:"Appealing to all young Norseman he said, "the government of our adopted country is in danger. It is our duty as brave and intelligent citizens to extend our hands in defense of the cause of our Country and of our homes."

Heg fought to defend government. That's precisely what this union of government officials is trying to do.

Protect themselves.

The AFSCME "union" isn't the people. They aren't citizens in the normal sense of that word. Citizens pay taxes to support the government.

It is. A lot of those statues are not constructed in such a way to be climbed on like that. He's lucky it didn't tumble over.

Then he'd be charged with its destruction.

This should have been removed by an authorized statue conservationist using appropriate tools.

I remember reading recently that meaning well isn't enough. The general rule is: Don't help unless you know what you are doing! The default position should be: Do nothing. First, do no harm. This is an essential conservative principle. It's especially obnoxious to help for the purpose of looking good — and making other people look bad.

Read that somewhere when some moron was bashing the Tea Party plan to pick the scotch tape off the marble in the Capital. Can't remember where I read that though.

"P.J. Crowley is abruptly stepping down as State Department spokesman under pressure from White House officials ..."

PJ seems to have forgot who the Torturer in Chief is.

Liberals are having a really hard time coming to grips with the fact that Barack Obama is torturing poor Bradley Manning.

It's not "the Pentagon" who is torturing him ... it's Barack Obama who is torturing him.

Barack Obama is the Commander In Chief of all US military forces. He could order a halt to the torture, but he has not done so and now liberals are having to come to grips with the fact that they are in fact the evildoers. They put this guy in. They voted for this torturer.

How can an honest liberal ever vote for Barack Obama again? When he's a torturer? When he shoots drone missiles at unarmed brown people in Afghanistan just trying to protect their homeland? How can an honest liberal ever vote for the Commandant of the Gulag at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba? The man who has resumed the show trials there?

Nobody in the Obama Administration is allowed to say that anything the federal government does is stupid because what they're saying is that Barack Obama is stupid.

And we can't have that, now can we?

Liberals must now contort their thinking so that Obama's torture of Bradley Manning is in fact what was necessary and good and right all along.

That way, they can vote for him again.

As they contort their minds, there will be a few who can't manage the trick. Winston couldn't and had to be dealt with.

Funny. Being stripped down to one's underwear every night is now "torture". If that is true, I am tortured every night. Sometimes, the torture is even worse than what poor Manning goes through, since sometimes even my underwear is removed.

Seriously, though, just another example of words being redefined and/or being used liberally to make things sound much worse than they are. Argh.

Yeah, well, in San Francisco, they have guys who will inflate your painted scrotum until it looks like a psychedelic bowling ball. Not sure if there's a charge for that or if they just do it to be nice, but it's gotta trump a naked bike ride on the Leftist Thinks It's Awesome scale.

Yeah, well, in San Francisco, they have guys who will inflate your painted scrotum until it looks like a psychedelic bowling ball. Not sure if there's a charge for that or if they just do it to be nice, but it's gotta trump a naked bike ride on the Leftist Thinks It's Awesome scale.

"Seriously, though, just another example of words being redefined and/or being used liberally to make things sound much worse than they are."

Barack Obama is torturing Bradley Manning (who, it should be noted, has not received a trial of any kind). Amnesty International also notes that his treatment violates several treaties on the treatment of prisoners, including Article 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which the USA ratified in 1992 and which states that “all persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person."

Bradley Manning's torture at the hands of the barbaric Barack O'Brien include:

1) He has been confined by himself for an extended and thus far indefinite period of time.

2) He has been stripped.

3) He has been housed in an extremely small space (72 square feet) for 23 hours per day.

4) He is not allowed to see the outside world.

5) There is no chair or table where he can eat.

6) He is shackled during visits

7) He has been subjected to sleep deprivation.

Barack Obama is inhuman. He is torturing this boy who has not even received a trial. Barack Obama should be arrested for war crimes by The Hague, tried and then punished.

He is an evil, evil man ... and I just don't see how any honest Democrat could vote for a torturer in chief like Barack Obama.

How is he even welcome at their parties with that sort of blood on his hands?

Took my aspiring guitar player teenage son to the Pink Floyd Experience concert last night at the Madison Civic Center. The band played in front of a large video screen.

During the first set they showed many images of the iconic Pink Floyd 'pig' and the two middle-aged women behind us would cackle loudly every time "It's Scott Walker!!" and blab on and on about their day at the prosest. I finally had to turn around and remind them the rest of us paid to hear the concert not listen to their non-stop political dialogue.

In the second set during Dark Side of the Moon they showed a video of various despots including Hitler, Stalin, etc. And some idiot kept standing up and yelling "And Scott Walker" much to the crowd's delight. They also loved the brave piano player showing off his Anti-Walker t-shirt.

This life-long resident grows increasily weary of Madison and its smug, condescending and conformist people.

I didn't notice Meade cleaning his shoe soles from grit and debris before stepping on the base of the statue. Nor was it clear how he kept his stick or knife blades from contacting the statue, or how he kept his ungloved hand from impressing sweat and acid on the statue's patina.

But if Meade's zeal did result in damage to the statue of Wisconsin's beloved war martyr, this documentary lets the state know who to blame. In fact, next time Meade drops by for a chat with the police, perhaps he could give them his palmprint.

If Meade did serve, I thank him. His actions are rather more noble if he didn't though. If a vet protects a war memorial, it is fine--if a bit self-serving. If a lifetime civilian protects a war memorial, it is pure patriotism.

Every man should have a knife on him at all times . . . for reasons like this and others . . .

At one time, it was expected for a man or boy to carry a knife. It was a big deal when I got my Cub Scout pocket knife, and an even bigger deal getting a Boy Scout pocket knife. To this day, I'm never without a knife in my pocket or on my belt.

Chef Mojo: The pocket knife is dead for us frequent flyers. The tsa believes that a two inch Case is as deadly as a pistol, a tiny Swiss Army with a half inch blade as dangerous as a Jihadi with a shaved chest. Once you can't take them everywhere you quit taking them anywhere.

Damn good point. But I rarely fly, and the times I have, I've left the knife at home and purchased something at my destination. A year ago, I flew out to San Antonio. An hour off the plane, I had a CRKT M-16 clipped in my back jeans pocket. Before going back a week later, I UPSed it back home. Then I gave it to a nephew. He was completely thrilled. Knives make great gifts!

I've seen your comments here long enough to know your not whacked but I think you might want to contemplate two seeming contradictions you got going

vet and self serving.

Speaking of which and I know none of you do want to talk about it but the active duty get to spend their time off because it's not "legal" to do it while at work co-ordinating efforts with vets and families and skirting the "law" which btw military guys have a hard time doing that to get around these Westboro lawyer family Baptist freaks.

How would you like to have to call up a grieving family while on your rare time off from the ops tempo to bother them with strategy and contingency plans to get away from pigs?

btw it's active duty and vets it ain't any or too many damn civilians helping us.

No civilians helped in the case I specifically know about but I do know an Air Force officer and Army officer at CENTCOM who were driven nearly....

I don't know why I am bothering, but here is one last try: If a vet protects a memorial devoted to those who served, then he is partly protecting a monument that honors himself. This is the very meaning of self-serving. I still think it is a fine and good thing to do. However, the motives of a lifetime civilian are more pure in that none of the honor being protected is devoted to the civilian.

In addition to being a former Marine, I am also a philosophy graduate, so have some familiarity with logic.

One wonders, did the possibility that those that desecrated that monument wipe their feet, wear gloves, and take great care not to disrespect the monument ever cross your mind?

Isn't that all part and parcel or desecration? Meade is the anti-desecrator.

To me, prudence would have dictated renting a scissors lift instead of clambering over that which you profess to respect, and using plastic tongs while wearing latex gloves, to eliminate the possibility of scratching or etching the statue.

"To me, prudence would have dictated renting a scissors lift instead of clambering over that which you profess to respect, and using plastic tongs while wearing latex gloves, to eliminate the possibility of scratching or etching the statue."

Assuming you're serious, I believe this indicates you are suffering from cranial-rectal inversion.

"Meade's era was Vietnam. He resisted the draft and would have gone to prison -- he had a draft number of 3 -- but the draft ended before they came for him."

Yeah him and Dick Cheney. Hey Ann, if you believe that story I've got a little bridge I'd like to sell you.

So now Meade feels so guilty about his failure to serve his country that he spends all his time going around cleaning up Civil War monuments (while his wife films him.) Meade, thank you for your service.

To me, prudence would have dictated renting a scissors lift instead of clambering over that which you profess to respect, and using plastic tongs while wearing latex gloves, to eliminate the possibility of scratching or etching the statue.

That's pretty thin gruel. Meade had gloves on when he was on the statue and touching it, except when he had the knife in his right hand and I did not see him acting clumsily with the knife.

Those statues are more at risk from Rock Pigeons and other bird species' droppings (high in ammonia content) than they are from Meade's shoes or the actions he took removing that scarf.

Mutaman: I am not sure of your vintage but unless you served in Vietnam yourself I would lay off of people who lived through that time whether they were drafted, avoided the draft, blew off a finger, went to Canada or volunteered for a third tour.

100th comment: lots of defacing public property which will cost lots of money to repair. The defacing of the statue could also be a littering issue. Madison (James) would not have approved, nor, I'm sure, would Heg. Mead stood in for those guys, in order to "Do the right thing" (unlike the figures in the movie by that name who clearly didn't know right from wrong). Thank you, Meade.

Well it's just my impression of this video in the context of the rest of your protest coverage I've been viewing. (which BTW has some really good footage and photography - props). The panning of the camera and the slightly wistful/dramatic recitation of the words on the statue of this hero, followed by your struggle to mount the statue and remove the "desecration" of the -- SHIRT -- followed by all these comments patting you on the back along with MORE (always MORE) rips on the protestors.

Well thanks for sharing your impression - the impression of a labor lawyer (?) who is sympathetic to the anti-Walker demonstrators. Right?

My "struggle to mount the [base of the] statue," such as it was, had nothing to do sacrificing myself for justice or some higher cause. I'm simply an old man who is a bit less nimble than the - I imagine - much younger protester who climbed up and hung the shirt over Heg's head.

I am a management side labor and employment lawyer (which just for the record is not a religion) and I understand why these people protested this bill. Even though I may not agree with all of their ideas, I thought the vast majority of them honorable.

I was 15 in 1969 when I came to believe our war in Vietnam was illegal and immoral. Intentionally breaking Selective Service law was my overly idealistic approach to doing what I thought then was the morally right thing to do.

I do not think this situation called for illegal occupation. (Although I do think that some situations would justify illegal occupation if its nonviolent - such as in the civil rights struggle). Breaking in and death threats are never tolerable.

Agree that the 14 should have stayed and let the republicans pass their bill. (The national attention was to the protestors, who would have protested anyway - and the 14 would have been spared the righteous indignation of the republicans).

The vast majority of these protestors were simply rallying and demonstrating. They were families and working people. And they were honorable. I will only ridicule the guy with the dead badger hat and the guy with the wheelbarrow of poo.

So once you decided you were wrong, why did't you enlist at that point? Or, if you honestly opposed the war, why didn't you serve your country in alternative ways- Peace Corps, VISTA, conscientious objector.

Sounds to me like you've taken the easy way out all your life, and like most who do , you're now an old reactionary bitching about the wellfare state.

"I will only ridicule the guy with the dead badger hat and the guy with the wheelbarrow of poo."

Heh. Suit yourself but if you change your mind and decide to dish a little ridicule on all the thousands of union demonstrators from Chicago, Detroit, Chicago,Kansas, Chicago, Iowa, Chicago, California, and Chicago, I'll be happy to give you a little extra credit.

I hear you...but a lot of those folks looked like my neighbors right here in Milwaukee (many of whom went to Madison every weekend). It would be interesting to know the numbers.

It will be interesting to see what happens with some of these recalls. As for where things look from my neck of the woods, the north shore folks are pretty hacked at 'Ol Bertie D. And there are so many other goodies people haven't even discovered about this budget bill....

I was in the second lottery, which was the first one for 19-year-olds only. I was 1-A but had too high a number for the Illinois quota.

After that [1971] the draft fell off as the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam. I tried to join the army in 1977, when I was 26, but as I was a college dropout and not a previous vet, they weren't taking my kind over age 25. The army was demobilizing.

Thank you again Meade, for standing up for proper respect and decorum for War Memorials.

Like Col. Heg before you, you are also a citizen who is standing up for what is right. Without such men and women making such stands at any given time of trouble in our country, we would have ceased to exist many years ago.

Don't let the damn fools criticizing you for your actions get you upset. Take pride in that doing what is right you are forcing them to confront their own inadequacies and sedentary commentary.